1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electronic game apparatus that can be played by a single player or by opposing players and, in particular, to a game apparatus in which a series of lights is successively lit to provide an object which the player or players seek to control.
2. Prior Art
Known in the prior art are various forms of electrical games in which one or more players interact through some form of switches with a light display, but to our knowledge, none of these prior art games is played with the same objectives, nor is any constructed and operated in the same manner, as our invention. U.S. Pat. No. 3,690,665-Becker discloses a game in which two rows of lights under the control of two sets of switches are under the control of opposing players. By actuating the switches, various combinations of lights are turned on and off and the object is to light all the lights in one of the rows, in order for a player to win or score. U.S. Pat. No. 3,376,041--Anderson discloses apparatus for playing the well known game of "Battleship" wherein a player first positions his ships on an array and each player then attempts to sink the other player's ships by guessing at their locations and "dropping bombs" or "firing shots" to indicated coordinate points of the array. This play is done in the apparatus disclosed in this patent by lights arranged in the form of the array and by control switches which light various ones of the lights as desired by the players.
While the above patents disclose games in which players actually interact with an object and oppose each other, there are other games such as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,637,212--Hurley, in which players compete serially or in parallel with each other to see who can obtain the highest score, there being no direct interaction or opposition between players. The game disclosed in this patent involves successively lighting a series of lights to simulate the flight path of a bird and a player attempts to "shoot down" the bird and thereby score a point.
Other types of games are for single players. One, for example, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,269--Elder wherein a group of lights is randomly illuminated and the player attempts to stop the process so that one light is lit corresponding to a symbol preselected by the player. Another example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,558,892--Burdick wherein three vertical rows of lights are used to simulate dropping a bomb on a ship. The object of the game is for the player to control the lighting so that three horizontally positioned lights at a time appear to move downwardly and drop the bomb on the ship.
There are also many games in which players interact, not with a light display, but with mechanical objects that move along a reversible path towards opposing goals. An example is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,348--Glass et al. A mechanical monster moves along a path under the control of two switches actuated by the players.
There are also known games that involve two players dealing each other with an object such as a tennis ball in a tennis game, a Ping Pong (trademark) ball in a table tennis game, or a lighted image on a television screen in games using television screen for display. However, this invention proposes the use of an array of lights, each light in the array being addressable digitally, as opposed to the analog presentation of data on a television screen.